President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) won unusual praise from netizens yesterday after he uploaded a sarcastic and self-deprecating video on Facebook in which he responded to his nicknames and ridiculed his own comments over the past eight years.
In a nearly four-minute video posted on Facebook yesterday morning, two days before he leaves office, Ma took a humorous approach to some of the most well-known nicknames given to him by netizens during his two presidential terms, such as “horse-brain jellyfish” (馬腦水母), “death-grip handshake” (死亡之握) and “deer antlers” (鹿茸).
“More than five years have passed since the creation of my Facebook fan page in January 2011, during which time the page has been ‘liked’ by about 1.67 million people,” Ma said in the video.
Photo: screen grab from Facebook
Ma said whenever he has the time, he personally checks the comments on his Facebook page, some of which he said are constructive criticism, while others often left him “not knowing whether to laugh or cry.”
Sharing some of the comments, Ma held up a card showing comments from two netizens, who said a handshake with Ma would lead to certain death, calling it the “death-grip handshake.”
“I never knew my hands were so powerful. I had better take good care of them,” Ma said, before taking out a bottle of moisturizer and applying it to his hands.
The term “death-grip handshake” was coined by users of Professional Technology Temple (PTT), the nation’s largest academic online bulletin board, at the end of Ma’s first term when some netizens compiled a list of the misfortunes that had occurred in nations Ma had visited and to individuals he had met.
“Deer antlers are hair from the animal’s ears,” Ma said, after he mistakenly said in 2014 that deer antlers used in Chinese medicine were actually hair from the animals’ ears. “I admit I made a mistake and I am willing to be punished for it.”
The president then took out an elementary-school notebook and wrote three times the accurate definition of “antlers” as a punishment.
Trying to keep a straight face, Ma then read out a comment that repeated the same question a dozen times: “Are you a horse-brain jellyfish?”
“Baobao is not a horse-brain jellyfish,” Ma said, using the popular Internet slang term “Baobao” (寶寶), or “baby,” which is used as a first-person pronoun to jokingly proclaim oneself cute.
Ma concluded the video by expressing his gratitude to the netizens who have lauded his administration’s achievements, such as the increased number of nations that grant Taiwanese visa-free status, the 2013 launch of an overpass connecting New Taipei City’s Wugu District (五股) and Taoyuan’s Yangmei District (楊梅), and Ma’s historic meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) last year.
“Dear fellow netizens, although my eight-year presidential terms are coming to an end, we have fought a good fight ... I will continue to care about Taiwan after leaving office,” Ma said.
As of press time, the video had attracted nearly 220,000 “likes” and more than 23,000 comments, and had been shared about 41,000 times.
Some netizens commended Ma for having the magnanimity to mock himself, while others said the outgoing president’s approval rating might have been far less disastrous if he had posted similar videos sooner.
The Chinese-language Apple Daily reported that Ma had long been aware of the online criticism and wanted to respond in person, but he did not know how to. He was excited when volunteer workers at the Presidential Office proposed making the video, it said.
The video was also posted on some Chinese Web sites, but sensitive terms, such as the “Republic of China,” were deleted.
A Chinese netizen said Ma’s video was interesting and shows that he is different from Chinese leaders “who live in mansions behind high walls,” while another said: “Our big boss lives in another world — I bet he doesn’t even know how to type.”
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